OUTRAGED!!! (again)

So, I'm flipping through the latest issue of our student-produced, public school newspaper, and on page 3 I do a double take. This is what I read:

As Cartman's mother would say, "Wh-, wh-, WHAT?!?!?!" Why am I finding an advertisement for an abortion clinic in a high school newspaper?! What THE HELL is wrong with our world?!?! Where is the advertisement for other options like the local adoption agency? Why is the only option being offered to our kids murder? If I were a parent (oh yeah, I am), I would be OUTRAGED (oh yeah, I AM!!!).

After my initial outburst and meltdown, I pulled myself together and read it again. Nope, it absolutely says "emergency contraception" (aka, the morning after pill, cleverly renamed to soften the blow of its inherent immorality) and "abortion services" (guess they haven't figured out how to camoflauge "murder" in left-wing psychobabble yet). My favorite is "The Emma Goldman Clinic's" tagline: "A feminist approach to health care." Excuse me while I clean the vomit off my shoes.

Of course, my next course of action is to call Dennis, outraged and overflowing with raw emotion. He always has a way of calming me down. Although, today, I think I got him more riled up about it than anything else. Then, I called the local Catholic Charities office for advice on how to respond and take action. Had to leave a message - school newspapers apparently come out before the center director gets into his office. So, I storm into the office of the only other conservative at my high school, shut the door and share the situation. His response is too colorful for my innocent little blog.

I decide this cannot go unnoticed. So, I swing by my principal's office. "Um, did you know there is an ad for an abortion clinic on page 3 of our latest newspaper?" "The Emma Goldman Agency?" he says, seemingly unfettered by its mention. "Yes. It seems a bit inappropriate for a high school newspaper, don't you think?" "Well, they offer a variety of services..." "Abortion being one of them, but without mention of adoption [or - God forbid - keeping the child - it was here that I bit me tongue]. If I were a parent, I would be shocked and outraged to see this in my child's newspaper." And here comes my favorite part of the conversation: "Well, Mrs. Knapp, you're not from West Branch."

I wish they'd said in their job listing "must be comfortable with teaching in the most liberal, left-wing community in southeastern Iowa." Spending my time presenting balance to liberal brainwashees consumes a serious portion of my days. I'm not even trying to make anyone more conservative - just trying to present the possibility of opposing thought. They simply won't have it.

At the end of our conversation, the principal referred me to the journalism teacher who advises the newspaper and suggested I ask him about his advertising policies. He said, "Honestly, I think they just go through the phone book and whomever is willing to pay for an ad, gets the space." Hmm... "ADoption agency" is awfully close to "ABortion clinic" in the alphabetical phone book. Maybe an ad will appear in the next issue??? I responded, cynically, although under the surface with dead seriousness, "Then they should start selling ads to cigarette companies, gun stores, porn shops and liquor stores. Heck, whomever is willing to pay for an ad, gets the space." We do have 18-year-olds here, and they are the target demographic for those businesses, no?

After talking with the journalism teacher, he said the adoption agencies wouldn't buy ad space (hmm... convenient answer), and he said there have been numerous law suits in FAVOR of such ads being placed in high school newspapers. That may be so, but it also behooves us as educators to, oh, I don't know, EDUCATE our students on issues of good judgement vs. bad judgement. Because this particular teacher is one of my closer peers, I stopped short of suggesting that he used incredibly poor judgement in this situation.

Sometimes, situations like these make me want to trailblaze my way into Congress to fight the good fight, but sometimes I feel so hopeless and that I want to dig a deep hole to hide from the sad, sorry world in which we live. Where is the voice of reason lately?!